Jim Panyard
PROMISES to the people of Pennsylvania from Jim Panyard, R, candidate for PA Governor Panyard was a candidate for PA Governor until early February, 2006. He is conservative and urges people to join the Constitutional Party. Source, Panyard4gov.com, January 2006 and Feb 2006 :Site was taken down by May 19, 2006. As governor, I promise: 1. To roll back all executive branch salaries to their year 2000 levels This will be a start toward bringing government salaries back to what they should be. If I had the legal power, I would also roll back the massive salary increases the Republican-controlled legislature and Democrat Governor Ed Rendell gave themselves and the state Judiciary at 4 a.m. on July 7, 2005. The salaries from the year 2000 will be sufficient to attract highly qualified people interested in serving their state and its citizens. I am not looking for political careerists in my administration. I want to end the NEW MONARCHY under which we Pennsylvanians currently find ourselves. 2. To never sign an operating budget larger than the one in place when I take office in January 2007 I estimate that budget will be in the neighborhood of $25.5 Billion and I believe that is sufficient to operate the state for each of the following four years. Over the past three decades state budgets have escalated at rates double and triple the rate of inflation. In our personal budgets we, the taxpayers of Pennsylvania, must make do with what we have, not with what we want. State government must do the same. Just as we, the taxpayers, must do without in difficult times, state government must do the same. There will be significant wailing from special interest groups, but the most important group, we, the people picking up the tab for political largesse, will be pleased. 3. To never approve any pay raises the legislative, executive, and/or judicial branches of the state government I do not believe public service should be a career. I believe people should, if they choose, serve and then return to their private lives to live under the laws and governments they helped to create. I believe in term limits. I believe current state pensions, benefits and “perks” are obscene. 4. To allow a member of the news media into any of and all meetings concerning the discussion of state government business and activities I will allow a reporter selected from among the news organizations that regularly cover state government in Harrisburg to be a “pool reporter” and sit in on any and all meetings the Governor has regarding state business and activities. I believe that virtually any meetings the Governor has, aside from personnel or security matters, should be public. Allowing a transparency will relieve our public fears of fixing, favoritism and corruption. It will also help restore our long lost sense of faith and honesty in our leaders. 5. To end corporate welfare and taxpayer support of private businesses I will end the transfer of taxpayer dollars to private businesses. This practice of propping up failing companies, bowing to extortion by wealthy companies or simply giving away tax dollars to politically favored businesses must end. If a business cannot gain loans or working capital through traditional private sources, it is too big a risk for the hard earned dollars of taxpaying Pennsylvanians. If it is a wealthy company like Comcast ($30 million), WAL-MART ($7 million), Cabela’s ($27 million) and countless others that have received taxpayer dollars in recent years, the state taxpayer money simply goes to their bottom lines. I will also end taxpayer funding of worker training for private business. Additionally, there will be no further funding for professional sports and entertainment facilities in Pennsylvania where the state has given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to multi-millionaire owners to build multi-million dollar facilities for their millionaire athletes and performers. Sadly, most hard working taxpayers can rarely, if ever, afford the admission price to the facilities they paid for. 6. To never approve further expansion of gambling in the state of Pennsylvania I am opposed to the expansion of gambling in Pennsylvania, to slot machine facilities and “Racinos” (slot machines at horse tracks), that was approved by the General Assembly and, unsurprisingly, blessed by the state Supreme Court. I will never approve an expansion of this corrupt and devastating influence while I am Governor. That means NO expansion to table games, dog tracks or full blown casinos. My appointee to the State Gaming (Gambling) Commission will do all in his or her power to assure the commission is a strict regulatory agency for Pennsylvania’s unfortunately expanded gambling industry and not simply an enabling commission. 7. To do everything in my power to tighten abortion restrictions and have the Roe vs. Wade decision overturned Since the Roe vs Wade decision in 1973, 46 million babies have been aborted in the United States and the slaughter of the innocents continues. That translates to an abortion about every 20 seconds nationally. In Pennsylvania, said to have one of the more restrictive abortion control measures in the U.S., an abortion is performed about once every 15 seconds. As Governor, I will use every tool I have to restrict abortion in the state and to bring the question of killing the unborn before the U.S. Supreme Court as many times and in as many ways as are necessary until justice prevails on this overwhelming issue. I will also not approve any state funding of Planned Parenthood or its related activities. I also oppose embryonic stem cell research. 8. To return our creator God to the public square I will acknowledge the Creator God and my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, in each and every government forum. I will encourage schools to have times for silent prayer. I will prominently display The Ten Commandments in the Governor’s Office, the Governor’s Reception area and other areas under my jurisdiction. I will personally pay for the placing of the Ten Commandments in the Harrisburg offices of all state Senators and members of the House of Representatives who request it. This nation has religious freedom for all, and was founded on the Judeo-Christian culture and heritage, which is the underpinning of Western Civilization. We must reclaim it. 9. To never sign into law any measure legalizing 'same sex' marriage or allowing sexual preferences to be used as a matter of preferential treatment The recent rash of “same sex” marriage is simply another amplification of the breakdown of standards in our nation. It is also part of a movement to undermine traditional families and to promote homosexuality as a simple lifestyle choice. The granting of employment benefits for cohabitants and same sex partners is antithetical to traditional virtues. People’s sexual preferences are theirs and theirs alone, not a burden to be overcome by taxpayers, businesses and others. Jim Panyard PLEDGES to the people of Pennsylvania As governor, I promise I will be unrelenting in my attempts to: 1. Cut state spending and meaningless programs I am prepared to offer cuts exceeding $1 Billion in my first operating budget as governor, and that number may go as high as $2 billion as my budget and spending analysis continues. That will represent cuts possibly exceeding 10 percent of the state’s operating budget by the end of my first 18 months in office. There are countless outdated, inappropriate, unconstitutional and inefficient programs now being funded by us, the Pennsylvania taxpayers. top 2. Provide educational options to parents and children now held captive by their zip codes I believe that children and their educations are the responsibility of their families and parents. I believe every parent should be given as many options as possible for their child’s education. I believe no child should be held captive in a substandard government school simply because of where he or she resides. I will push for school choice vouchers, an expansion of charter schools, expanded scholarship programs such as the Educational Improvement Tax Credit for businesses (which I assisted in developing), cyber schools and distance learning, Personal Income Tax Credits such as the one in Arizona to expand scholarships, sensible home school regulations and private school scholarships to expand educational opportunity to all. I will also encourage all people of faith – Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. – to remove their children from government schools which teach the religion of Secular Humanism. Parents who continue to choose the government school option will have my full support in demanding results from an abysmal system that has the highest paid teachers in the nation, the third highest per-pupil spending and constantly ranks at the bottom in achievement statewide. top 3. Remove the 22% overhead now crippling business and manufacturing I support the 13-bill Keystone Manufacturing Initiative (KMI) which I helped develop three years ago and which has lingered in the General Assembly for far too long. Over the past decade more than 250,000 manufacturing jobs, the best family-sustaining jobs in the state, have been lost. That is a quarter of a million Pennsylvanians, skilled and hard working Pennsylvanians, who have moved down the rungs of our economic ladder. American manufacturers have a 22 percent overhead in the form of taxes and regulations when compared to our Western European competitors (National Association of Manufacturers’ study). When compared to Third World nations such as China, Singapore and Mexico, there is no way we can equal the cost differential, even through productivity gains. top 4. To have a moratorium placed on all U.S. trade agreements and toU.S. to have them repealed The United States government has entered into a variety of trade agreements – NAFTA, GATT, the World Trade Organization, CAFTA – that have placed our nation in great peril. Under the guise of “free trade” our government keeps encouraging once-American businesses to set up operations in cheap or slave labor nations. The reasons for these actions are, at best, questionable and, at worst, sinister. I will lobby Congress and the President to place a moratorium on further trade agreements with other nations until an objective and independent analysis can be done of the impact of all existing agreements on the financial health of Pennsylvanians and all Americans. If the studies reflect a negative impact, the trade agreements should be rescinded or protective tariffs for America’s workers and citizens should be put in place. I believe in true “free trade.” However, “free trade” is a theory that has never been implemented. No government on the planet allows “free trade.” All governments regulate the trade of their nations in what they perceive to be the best interests of the nation or the special interests of the politically and financially elite. top 5. To find an option to local property taxes that currently make it impossible for Pennsylvanians to ever truly own their homes It is a sad and simple fact that we in Pennsylvania can never own our property. Once the mortgage is paid off, the best we can hope for is to lease it from our local taxing authorities. And, we had better keep up those taxes or the government will take it from us. Local property taxes, especially those from the local school boards, are an unyielding burden to most Pennsylvanians. Political schemes and dreams have been keeping the hope of relief alive for decades, but none have succeeded. The only real options to make up the $8 Billion raked in by local governments each year is an expansion of the Personal Income Tax or the State Sales Tax, or some combination thereof, to generate $8 Billion and permanently eliminate the property tax. I propose to develop that plan, in consultation with the General Assembly, and present it on a statewide ballot as a “sense of the people” referendum. If the plan is substantially approved by the electorate, the lawmakers can pass the proposal approved by voters and I will sign it into law. top 6. I will also urge the general assembly to pass an initiative and referendum law that will allow Pennsylvanians the right to propose, for statewide electoral approval, new laws the citizenry feels are needed Pennsylvania’s General Assembly has rebuffed this idea in the past because it feels it diminishes political power and gives too much latitude to the people. I stand with the people, not with the powers. Other notes: We Need a Governor, September 22, 2005 by Jim Panyard The only way to check and challenge “The Brotherhood of Greed” that reigns in Harrisburg is by electing a Governor who will say, “No.” We need a Governor who will say, “No” to profligate spending, to unconstitutional federal mandates, to self-serving pay raises, to a failed school system constantly seeking more taxpayer dollars, to corporate welfare, to lawsuit abuse, “jackpot juries” and political courts, to unnecessary new government programs, to political power brokers, to a deeply flawed justice system and to taxpayer funded special interest groups. We need a Governor who has no further political ambitions, who wants nothing from the legislature or the judiciary except fairness and justice for all Pennsylvanians. We need a Governor who says, “Yes” to hard work, individual responsibility, faith and integrity, strict fiscal conservatism, minimal government, the state and federal constitutions he swears to uphold, true free enterprise, ending government interference and being open and frank with the people of Pennsylvania. We need a Governor who wants to end the socialist dole, not to the poor, but to corporations and their lobbyists; to “make work” programs; and to stop the redistribution of the earnings of hard working Pennsylvanians to those who are politically connected. Pennsylvania needs a future, September 22, 2005 by Jim Panyard Our tax system, personal and corporate, is out of control. The state is aging and taxpayers are less and less able to pay for the political largesse the “Lords and Ladies” in Harrisburg have been dispensing. Our school system does not effectively educate and has not done so for 30 years. Our state is far behind the national averages in job creation, personal income growth, academic achievement scores, meaningful job opportunities and a host of other important criteria. We have lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs in the last decade. Pennsylvania has more taxpayer-funded government employees (780,000) than it has private sector manufacturing workers (650,000) for the first time in its history. We have more takers than makers. Our largest private employer is WAL-MART with 64,000, mostly low paid, workers. We have spent more and received less for our taxpayer funded “economic development” programs over the last decade than any state in the union. We have handed out nearly $20 billion in taxpayer moneys to “private” enterprise over the last decade and now are hoping slot machines and “racinos”, along with the addictions, bankruptcies and broken homes they will bring, will provide more money for state government. Our leaders have given tens and tens of millions to companies such as WAL-MART, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Comcast and Cabela’s to name only a very few. That money, our tax dollars, has gone directly to their bottom lines. We need to stop “Business As Usual”, September 22, 2005 by Jim Panyard Pennsylvania’s population has not increased since Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of the United States more than 35 years ago. Our truly beautiful state is filled with wonderful, hardworking people. They are tired of political games and scandal, of increasing taxes with no improvements in their ways of life, and of being ruled, not governed, by an arrogant aristocracy. And yet, they have little or no role in determining the future of our state. The only avenue open to them is voting in General Assembly elections, where gerrymandering has all but ruled out any real choices; judicial elections where no one but party insiders even know who the candidates are or what they stand for; and gubernatorial elections where party machines pick loyalists to continue business as usual. The citizens of Pennsylvania, have virtually no ability to check what goes on in Harrisburg. The differences in Republican and Democrat activities in Harrisburg are negligible. They are not part of the problem, they are the problem. Eights years of Tom Ridge and a GOP-controlled General Assembly and three years of Ed Rendell and a GOP-controlled General Assembly have only produced more business as usual, simply at a faster pace and higher cost to the taxpayers. In fact, the Republican Ridge administration raised the cost of state government more than his Democrat predecessor Bob Casey Sr., a man viewed as a “tax and spend Democrat.” Someone once said that “doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.” Voting for the candidates offered by the power structures of Pennsylvania’s Democrat and Republican parties and expecting something different is insane. Ed Rendell will undoubtedly be the Democrat candidate next November. He will conduct business as usual, if reelected. The Republican Party powers are considering a liberal Republican who was Lieutenant Governor for eight years and whose father was Governor forty years ago; a 27-year member of the General Assembly who has climbed to state Senate leadership while the state’s growth has continued to flounder and a National Football League Hall of Fame pass catcher. The state Republican Committee will determine whose turn it is to challenge Rendell and continue business as usual. I will be the Outsider. The candidate beholden to no one. The candidate who knows and says “business as usual” cannot continue. The candidate who wants to put the brakes on state government. The candidate who will not “broker deals.” The candidate who wants to put God back in the Public Square. The candidate who will do all in his power to break down the system of deals, midnight laws and increased spending that has pockmarked our past. The candidate committed to giving parents alternatives in the education of their children and demanding that the government education system “make do” with the $18 billion it drains from the taxpayers annually. The candidate committed to a free and competitive economy. My candidacy offers the people of Pennsylvania their first meaningful choice in determining whether their state will continue to decline or whether they, the people, are willing to put away business as usual and retake their state. Links: * VIPs Broken * One Man Think Tank Podcast interview of Panyard from Feb 2006 Panyard Panyard